Women and Apostasy

Thank you for your post, KittyValentine! I'm sorry you had such an awful experience growing up and the relationship with your mum is strained due to her physical abusiveness.

I think many of us who were JWs can relate. They do love the 'spare the rod, spoil the child' verse, don't they? My mum had a similar mindset, but my dad wasn't a JW and told my mum he wouldn't tolerate such kinds of disciplinary actions towards me. So I think that helped me in a way.

I'm glad you managed to get out. I have a very strained relationship with my mother too. She has mellowed a bit in her beliefs as she has gotten older. I haven't directly told her I'm an atheist as it would be too upsetting for her and she will feel under pressure to cut all contact with me - such is the cult mindset. I don't want her to feel like she has to make that decision, so we avoid religious topics in general. She knows I don't practice the beliefs anymore, but thinks maybe I will change my mind later, and we leave it at that.

Wonderful suggestions, TheCuriousMonkey. Thanks.

I wasn't sure whether it was worth starting a brand new thread, or reviving this one.

There are 26 days left to watch Apostasy on BBC - www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000nx25

I'd really recommend it if you haven't seen it already. It is a fantastic depiction of some of the experiences of women as Jehovah's Witnesses and how their lives are shaped by their beliefs and the men within these groups.

To repeat what I said in my opening post,
I liked Unorthodox and Apostasy as both are female led and focuses on issues from a woman's point of view. It also shows the role of other women in such high control religious groups - some embrace it while others have resigned themselves to it as they have nowhere else to go - they are too old or don't have the means to do so and have invested too much in the community and faith. They provide the lifelong supporting role to the men in these communities - unacknowledged, unappreciated, undervalued.

Happy to discuss it with anyone who is interested. Will try not to give away spoilers.

I’m not Asian but I am an ex JW and I posted quite a bit on previous threads.

I'm way too late in responding to this post, as you're most likely not following this thread anymore, but thank you for posting RJnomore1!
It is good to see a fellow ex-JW.
I understand the conflict that can arise between deeply held beliefs or long-term conditioning versus rational views and factual positions we might support. Sometimes those conflicts can disappear over time, and sometimes they linger on.

I think this duality can be useful in certain circumstances as it gives a person an insight from both points of view, allowing for more nuance in discussions. It would be great if there were spaces as you say for these kinds of conflicts to be discussed.

PikesPeaked I'm really liking the concept of FOG - Fear, Obligation, Guilt. I'm going to try and remember that as it encapsulates the experience of questioning the deeply held beliefs you were brought up with quite well!

As for head coverings for women, I've heard all sorts of reasons - some as a way of expressing devotion to god, others as a way of showing modesty or reserving their beauty only for their husbands, some compare women without head coverings like sweets or meat that is unwrapped thereby allowing flies and other insects to settle on them. Maybe it comes down to whether one views certain things or practices more as an expression of an individual's free will and choice or whether a person's choices are shaped by the (positive or negative) social forces around them.

I went looking for some material from Jehovah's Witnesses about when women in the organisation are meant to wear a head covering, as it's been a while since I've read their stuff. So glad I'm no longer constantly reminded that I have to accept that men are above me in every respect.

wol.jw.org/en/wol/d/r1/lp-e/1102008084

In the family arrangement, the woman’s husband is the one whom Jehovah designates as her head. Unless she gives due recognition to her husband’s authority, she would shame her husband if she handled responsibilities that Jehovah assigns to him. For example, if it became necessary for her to conduct a Bible study in her husband’s presence, she would acknowledge his authority by wearing a head covering. She would do so whether he is baptized or not, since he is the head of the family. If she were to pray or to teach in the presence of her minor baptized son, she would likewise wear a head covering, not because he is the head of the family, but because of the authority granted to baptized male members of the Christian congregation.

What a distortion to make someone believe that God’s approval would rest on a parent shunning their child. It goes against every instinct to love and protect and sounds gaslighty to me.

RumbaswithPumbaas (love your username by the way) - it's amazing how certain beliefs and ideas can really screw up people to the point where they abandon or flip around basic human instincts like a parent's desire to love and protect their child.

There's something worse than shunning though. Jehovah's Witnesses believe that blood transfusions are wrong. Parents genuinely believe it's better to allow their children to risk death rather than let doctors give them a blood transfusion. Mind you, it's the sort of thing that's easy for JWs to talk about until they are put in such a position. It's actually terrible for the parents to have to make that decision, but they genuinely believe they are doing the right thing and leaving their child's life in god's hand. Even if they feel tempted to allow a transfusion, they know they will be committing a sin and will be disciplined for it. Many times the 'congregation elders' will turn up at the hospital to ensure the adult or child who is admitted will not be given a transfusion (although many countries forbid such practices against children and the State can intervene).

I remember when my mum's friend came over one evening and was crying her heart out in anguish because her little girl was diagnosed with leukemia and she knew the 'right' thing was to ensure the doctors didn't give her daughter blood transfusions or any treatment that included blood. Although I think there were other methods that either didn't use blood or only used certain components of blood that might have been deemed to be ok. Yet the effectiveness of such methods weren't as good as conventional treatments.
It was heartbreaking to see. She was clearly terrified of her child dying but also conflicted and scared that the doctors would force a transfusion and cause her child to have committed a grave sin. I no longer believed in the JW teachings by this point, so I had to shut myself in my bedroom in case I said something. I didn't want to make a difficult situation more stressful for her.

Cults are incredibly common..... It's an exaggeration of common human behaviour, really - othering and herd mentality, confirmation bias, etc. (And cults don't have to have anything to do with a god or gods, fwiw).

Yes, great point ScrimpshawTheSecond - it really is an exaggeration of the normal spectrum of human behaviour. Some of these groups start out with good intentions or grand ambitions.

There was a really interesting article I read a while ago... Wish I could find it now... But some people in Britain were persuaded to visit some sort of commune in Denmark I think... The people there all seemed really friendly and nice and had all sorts of plans to help others ... But there were some disturbing glimpses of certain things not being asked or questioned. The guy who wrote the article said he felt uncomfortable and was glad to have left after a few days or a week. And he always wondered what had become of them. These sort of things are everywhere and it's so easy to fall into them, especially if you are vulnerable and looking for a sense of purpose.

RumbaswithPumbaas the point of religion is to control people. That's not necessarily a bad thing. We are social mammals and it's easier to bring people together through some sense of shared purpose or identity or belief. Religion has been a useful tool for this long before governments and nations were established. Shamans, high priests and holy men wielded power, respect and authority because believers looked up to them for guidance.

The inevitable path for any belief system or ideology as it becomes more organised, widespread and systemic is to become more entrenched and inflexible and a bit dominating. But there is a balancing act between stability and becoming irrelevant, hence successful religions like Christianity have absorbed all sorts of pagan traditions to appeal more widely, but also has been tamed from inside and outside into loosening its grip and mellowing as it evolves into a more benign and mature religion. It's selling a product to the masses like anyone else and has to adapt to stay relevant in people's lives.

I’m also struck by the idea of apostasy not being about trying to encouraging someone to return to faith for the good of their own soul,

Except that is exactly how Jehovah's Witnesses view shunning. It is a gentle, loving way to encourage someone to return to the faith for the good of their own soul. There's no violence or threats. Just a polite refusal to engage with or associate with the apostate. It helps them re-evaluate their position and think about what's important and encourages them to repent and realise that the organisation is the right place for them to be.

And god doesn't have to be personified or authoritarian. 'God' can be your personal level of spirituality, of connection with that which is more than the sum of our understanding.

pikespeaked in that case, why not dispense with the notion of god entirely? That's my approach. I am a good person in spite of religion. There are a lot of things in the Old and New Testament that are so, so wrong and it made me very uncomfortable when I used to read it as a believer. That was actually my conscience telling me that what god supposedly did or commanded was wrong and unethical.

We can learn lots of wonderful things about life, love and doing the right thing from the Harry Potter books or Lord of the Rings. Or by reading the works of Rumi or Confucius. Intellectual men and women have existed throughout human history and our mythologies and stories are a way to preserve and pass on collective wisdoms and ideas. Why not glean profound truths from the breadth and depth of human history and literature? It made no sense to me to uphold one religious worldview above others simply because that's what I was brought up to believe in.

When humanity was in its infancy and we were very much at the mercy of nature and natural forces like other animals, we literally worshipped the sun or fire or thunder and so on. As we understood the world around us better and found ways to manipulate it to our advantage, we then decided that it wasn't fire or the sun that were gods to be worshipped, but instead there was a god of fire, a god of water, thunder, goddess of fertility etc. The superpowers of these gods became fairly complex over time as our technologies and civilizations developed.
Monotheism created a sort of superman figure - the superpowers of all the gods concentrated in one being that could trump all the others. I can see the appeal in that. Why make sacrifices and prayers separately to a god of wealth, a god of health, a goddess of fertility and so on, when you just have one being with all the combined superpowers that you ask for help?
Nowadays the trend is to say that god is within us or works through us... Or even that we are gods ourselves. It's curious that our conception of god changes as our ability to interact with our environment also changes.

As the atheist Johnathan Miller said: "I'm not a jew. Just jew-ish. Don;t want to go the whole hog."

I can get on board with that! 😄

TheProdigalKittensReturn that must have been so awful for your friend! 😖
When a friend of mine was getting married, she had some strong disagreements with her dad (who has heart issues) and her mum literally said, if he dies of a heart attack it will be your fault. Surprise, surprise she ended up doing what her dad wanted. It never ceases to amaze me how many parents and families think it's ok to say these sort of things. So much emotional abuse and blackmailing, and women are more susceptible because we're taught to 'always be kind'. Bah!!

Babdoc I'm not an atheist because I had a 'bad experience' with religion. This is a common assumption made by people. I'm an atheist because (all) religion makes zero sense to me and I don't / can't get anything positive out of it.
I think sooner or later I would have figured out that atheism is my default position. Being brought up in a high control religious group like the Jehovah's Witnesses simply accelerated that process because I have always been the type to ask a lot of questions.

I'm a very introspective person and I have always loved logic. I was brought up to believe the Jehovah's Witnesses were the 'truth'. (They actually refer to it as The Truth. If a JW bumps into a new JW they might ask them 'So were you born in the truth or did you find it later in life?')
When I started to realise the flaws and inconsistencies in the belief system, the lies and deliberate covering up by the religious leaders, my next reaction was - well if this religion isn't the 'truth', then I guess I'll need to find out which one is....

I've always had a deep fascination for reading and learning about old religions and mythologies - the Egyptians, the Greeks and Romans, Norse, Celts, Aboriginal Australian, Native American, Hinduism etc. It is a wonderful insight into the human psyche and the evolution of our collective consciousness.

And it hit me one day! The vast majority of people follow their religion for no real reason other than they were born into it and their parents told them (either explicitly or implicitly) it was true and that's how things are done. That's it. We are mostly creatures of habit and socialisation.

If my mum's great grandparents hadn't converted to Christianity, specifically Catholicism, I would still be a Hindu and think that Hinduism is the 'right' thing to follow and how much meaning it brings to my life. If I was born in a different time and place, I'd be extolling the virtues and greatness of Zeus or Osiris.
I don't know if someone else might have had a complete mental breakdown at this epiphany, but it actually gave me quite a sense of peace in a way that my search for meaning via religion couldn't. The sheer simplicity of it is beautiful.

There are many commonalities in Christian mythology with other belief systems because that's how religions evolve - a melting pot of ideas and stories and superstitions. Individuals who may have existed become deified when legends spring up around them and contemporary myths are superimposed on their lives and sufficient time passes so that any veracity becomes obscured.
Being born of a virgin, being a saviour, resurrection, the cross, miracles etc etc - these are sprinkled across mythologies and not unique to Christianity in any way. The only reason we don't offer supplication to the pantheon of Egyptian or Assyrian gods is simply because they are no longer in fashion or part of our dominant cultural narrative.